Board of Ed Member Making $95K/Yr Stole School Lunches

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (WJZ) -- Chew on this: a former Prince George's County Board of Education member who was pulling in nearly six figures could get decades in prison for stealing thousands of dollars in school lunches.

Lynette Jacqueline Mundey, 34, of Upper Marlboro, will be sentenced Friday following her February 17 conviction on charges of felony theft-scheme, welfare fraud and filing a false public assistance application for bilking taxpayers out of more than $1,700 in free lunches over several years starting in 2011.

And get this, it was actually Mundey's current employer, a federal watchdog agency, that caught on to her cafeteria caper and led to her eventual indictment. The U.S. Government Accountability Office's 2014 audit of the School Meals program revealed that she and other employees were applying for and getting free or reduced-price lunches they weren't eligible to receive.

The program requires someone to be earning between $11,600 and $40,000. So how did Mundey, who was making nearly $95,000 while sitting on the board of education, skirt the system?

Apparently, it wasn't that hard. According to the Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office, she was drastically downplaying her income -- or reporting none at all -- from the 2011-2012 through the 2014-2015 school years.

Prosecutors say Mundey could face up to 49 years in prison at her sentencing hearing on Friday morning.